


Coming to You Live

by katwithallergies



Series: Not About Shirts [2]
Category: MythBusters RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Disability, Disabled Character, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katwithallergies/pseuds/katwithallergies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a spinal cord injury leaves Adam disabled he has to find new ways to entertain himself.<br/>"It seemed like Jamie was the last person in the world to find out that Adam was running a web variety-talk show out of their bathroom."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming to You Live

**Author's Note:**

> Ok sooo... I have this whole crazy AU where Adam is injured working on the show and becomes a C1-2 quad on a vent. There's angst and then eventually Jamie bring him home and embarks on yet another career as the world's only builder of innovative and insane wheelchairs. Naturally. There's a good 10k word fic to come out of it, parts of which are written and scattered around my computer and notebooks. One day I'll get it finished, but in the meantime here is a little fluff that comes after they are settled into their new lives.  
> I have done my best to do my research and I do have some experience with this field, I apologize for any remaining mistakes.

It started out innocently enough with Adam using the web cam on his chair-mounted netbook to chat with his mother and sister.  Then Adam realized he could operate the camera, edit the footage, and upload it to the internet completely on his own, and that’s when the trouble began. 

He recorded a Twitter bubble vid saying ‘hello’ to everyone and thanking them for their support.  Within a week he had 750,000 views and thousands of encouraging comments, and that gave him an idea.

 

The thing about being in a chair is that you are simultaneously an object of spectacle and invisible.  For one thing, it’s hard to get out of the house, so people start to forget about you and you start to forget about them.  Then when you _do_ get out everyone stares.  Whether he was getting out of the van or rolling through the mall, everyone stared at Adam in his big power chair with all the accessory arms sticking off of it and the ventilator tubing going to his neck. 

If Adam got too close the exact opposite happened; people looked anywhere but at him and everyone talked to Jamie instead of him.  At restaurants the waiter inevitably asked Jamie what Adam would like to order.  It was infuriating, actually.  He really wanted to roll over their toes.

 

With the webcam Adam had control over how people saw him.  He could zoom the camera in close on his face and when he did people saw _him_ instead of the chair _._  For his first video he wanted to stay away from disability topics.Instead he shut himself in Jamie’s bathroom and recorded a ten minute monologue on the finale of _Lost_ titled “What the fuck, ABC?” 

When he first started talking to the camera he worried that people wouldn’t respond well. The vent forced him to talk with a funny cadence and he knew he sounded odd. He could hear it too, for fucks sake.  But what was he supposed to do, stop talking?  A couple minutes into filming he got wrapped up in the point he was trying to make and forgot to worry about it. Mostly he just rambled with a vague idea of where he was heading until he felt like he was done.  He winked at the camera and signed off, “Don’t try this at home, kids!”

He edited in a few special effects and some sounds to complement his commentary and uploaded it to YouTube.  Within a few days he’d gotten almost a million views.  Then someone must have put it on Digg or Stumble or some shit because it went viral.  Overnight he was up to four million views and his inbox was full of people requesting more.

He’d missed this, he realized.  He hadn’t even known he was missing it until he had the feedback and the connection to an audience again, but he knew as soon as he felt it that this was filling a place that had been empty and aching.  It just felt _right_ to be back in the fray, back to contributing to this network of brilliant people he could tap into and bounce ideas off of. 

Adam was on cloud nine all day frantically sending tweets and replying to emails.  This was probably the point when he should have told Jamie, but somehow he just… didn’t.  It niggled at the back of his mind.  Why didn’t he want to share his success with his best friend?  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was easy to push the thought aside and focus on his overflowing inbox instead.

 

It seemed like Jamie was the last person in the world to find out that Adam was running a web variety-talk show out of their bathroom.  He only found out because he happened to turn on the TV to check the weather and saw Adam’s face on the Early Show.  He choked on his coffee.  First he recognized Adam, then he recognized his toilet.  Jamie shut off the TV and googled Adam on his netbook at the kitchen table.

Jamie normally let Adam sleep until he woke up so he was still snoozing when Jamie carried the netbook into their bedroom and dropped it onto the pillow by his head.  He pushed play and turned the volume up.  Adam screwed his eyes shut and groaned.

“Hey, I have some questions for you,” Jamie patted Adam’s cheek to wake him.  “Wake up, Adam,” he pushed the netbook closer.

Adam opened one eye first, glancing past Jamie to the Adam on the screen.  On-screen Adam was talking about the perils of negotiating airport security in a power chair and what a fuck-up NASA was making of the Mars mission.  Real-Adam groaned and looked away.  He wasn’t in his chair, so he couldn’t even try to run.  “Dude, I was so going to tell you. Soon,” he promised Jamie.

“I want to know why twenty million people have seen my toilet,” Jamie insisted.

“Well,” Adam explained.  “That’s because the bathroom is the only room in the house with good acoustics and enough clearance for me to get my chair in, shut the door, _and_ be able to open it again.”

Jamie frowned at him like he was disappointed.  “No, Jamie.  Don’t look at me like that.”  Adam looked around the room for help.  “I was going to tell you soon, I promise.”

“Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?” Jamie asked and now Adam could hear the tell in his voice; he was hurt.

“Jamie…” Adam struggled.  “You wipe my ass, okay? You give me goddam enemas.  My definitions of privacy may have changed, but I still want some.”

“I understand,” Jamie sighed.  “It’s just… we share all the really bad stuff, I want to share the good stuff, too.”

“I know,” Adam felt Jamie’s hand stroking through his hair.  “I’m sorry.”

“I’m proud of you,” Jamie pressed pause on the video, which had been chattering along in the background.  “You don’t ever stop fighting.”  He leaned down to kiss Adam’s cheek.  “Come on, let’s get up.  I made breakfast, and apparently I have a whole season of your web-show to catch up on.”


End file.
